TOXIN PARANOIA

Awareness of pollution, toxins, and other environmental and food health issues is important. Toxin paranoia, however, is not the gateway to the best pet food.

Everything, other than you, is potentially toxic to you. If you have an autoimmune condition, you can even be toxic to yourself.

There are tens of thousands of toxins in air, water, and food. Some are synthetic and industrial, many are natural. There are endless websites that make a living scaring people with an endless parade of toxins du jour in cookware, water, food, lotions, household products, air, and clothing.

Can we get rid of or avoid them all? No. Can we get rid of even a significant percentage of them? No. (This and what follows is not to say that a substance proven to be toxic at levels commonly used in foods should not be avoided.)

Therefore, making one's mission in life the avoidance of all toxins is an impossible task. Should we try, within reason, certainly.

If food manufacturers were to exclude any ingredient that could potentially be toxic, they would be selling only empty packages.

Pet owners seeking the best pet food, the most pure pet food, will hear of a "study" that "proves" that a certain ingredient is toxic. Unfortunately, most people not familiar with the flow of scientific and medical literature or skilled in its analysis, do not realize that every month there are hundreds of thousands of articles and studies. Virtually no finding in this copious and swelling body of information goes unchallenged by other studies and other science. Such is the case with all reports of toxicity. It is misleading to read one article (and usually people are not even reading the original study, but a report of a study in the popular press or on the Internet) to form a certain conclusion.

An improperly controlled study about ingredient X fed to a mouse at levels high enough to choke a horse, or ingredient Y used by one pet without regard to any of the other environmental factors in that one pet's life, does not constitute good science.

Practical proof of safety is the history with the ingredient in question used by hundreds of thousands of pets and people through multiple generations – with health, not disease, toxicity, and death – resulting.

To some, in their zeal about a particular toxin, such facts will not matter. When asked for actual proof that an ingredient as fed in a mixed pet food caused toxicity, there is silence. What they have read – without regard to the experimental design, the controls, the dosage, the study blindedness, the statistical validity, and the confounding factors that must be taken into consideration – is all the proof they need. The cause, the mission, and the zeal that often accompanies it, takes precedence over common sense and reason.

So how can it be that there are so many toxins about us and we are able to survive at all? Because we and our companion animals are designed for toxins. That is what our immune system is all about.

Additionally, the most important principle in toxicology is: THE DOSE MAKES THE POISON. Everything can be toxic in high enough dosage – even water and oxygen. But at a smaller dose, the toxin usually causes no harm unless exposure is continuous.

Another principle also holds true, THE REVERSE EFFECT: That which is toxic at a high dose, may be health-promoting at a lower dose. Water and oxygen are essential to life but are lethal at high enough dosage. Homeopathic preparations made from the very agents that cause disease, can cure disease at extremely low dosage.

It is with these principles in mind that pet foods should be evaluated. To further assure safety, <<rotation and variety>> should be employed to permit the body to detoxify and to prevent potential adverse reactions to an ingredient.

Now then, let's talk about the dangers of toxin crusades. Not only is it mentally unhealthy to attempt the impossible – live in a toxin-free world – it distracts from what can actually cause health. By understanding that toxins are everywhere, we can deduce that although toxins cannot be avoided, they can be minimized and their effects blunted by rotation, variety, and good living and eating practices. By fortifying pets with good food, supplements, sunshine, and exercise we can build their health and help them withstand the inevitable assault of toxins.

On the other hand, getting on a toxin bandwagon narrows one's focus and presumes that by eliminating this or that reputed toxin, health will be achieved. That approach to life and health is doomed to failure. It discounts the other essential elements to health. It makes one vulnerable to the yet-to-be-discovered toxins in the very product one uses constantly because it does not contain the particular feared toxin.

For example, people trying to avoid preservative toxins fall prey to the greater dangers of free radical toxins in processed foods with "no preservatives." A pet owner trying to avoid the supposed dangers of grains, instead feeds a continuous diet of "no-grain" foods that contain the most serious problem, starch, but in less nutritious and perhaps more toxic form, such as cyanide-containing tapioca. People avoiding fortified foods because they contain synthetic and purported toxic vitamins and minerals, risk deficiencies because natural vitamins and minerals are destroyed in the processed food they are consuming.

Balance and perspective are essential in finding the best pet foods. This wisdom can only come by continuing to be as fully informed as possible and not surrendering to quick-fix ideas or scary legends about pet feeding.